April 4

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , , , , , , , ,

What was advertised in a revolutionary American newspaper 250 years ago today?

New-England Chronicle (April 4, 1776).

“Will be PUBLISHED … in BOSTON, A New Edition of COMMON SENSE.”

It did not take long after the siege of Boston ended with the evacuation of British troops on March 17, 1776, for printers in that town to set about publishing a local edition of Thomas Paine’s Common Sense.  An advertisement in the April 4 edition of the New-England Chronicle, published in Cambridge, announced that “Next week will be PUBLISHED, and to be SOLD, by T. and J. FLEET, and EDES and GILL, in BOSTON, A New Edition of COMMON SENSE.”  This edition would include “several additions in the body of the work: To which is added an Appendix, and an address to the representatives of the people called Quakers.”  That the printers described it as a “New Edition” suggested that they followed the second edition that Paine collaborated with William Bradford and Thomas Bradford in publishing rather than unauthorized editions that Robert Bell, the publisher of the first edition, marketed after having a falling out with the author.  The Bradfords described their edition as the “NEW EDITION” in their advertisements.  They also inserted a nota bene that declared, “This Edition contains upwards of one-third more than any former one.”  The Fleets and Edes and Gill replicated that nota bene in their own advertisement.

It likely came as no surprise to local readers that Benjamin Edes and John Gill got involved in publishing an edition of Common Sense.  For many years, they printed the Boston-Gazette, a newspaper known for its strident advocacy for the American cause.  After publishing the April 17, 1775, edition of the Boston-Gazette, they suspended the newspapers and dissolved their partnership following the battles at Lexington and Concord on April 19.  Edes removed to Watertown, where the Massachusetts Provincial Congress met, and resumed publication in early June 1775.  The Boston-Gazette remained there until the end of October 1776 and then returned to port city.  Thomas Fleet and John Fleet, the former printers of the Boston Evening-Post, had previously collaborated with Edes and Gill and other local printers on other projects, especially almanacs.  They published the final issue of the Boston Evening-Post on April 24, 1775, announcing that they “shall desist publishing their Papers … till Matters are in a more settled State.”  They never resumed publishing their newspaper, but they joined with Edes and Gill in publishing a Boston edition of Common Sense shortly after the British left the city.  Samuel Hall, the printer of the New-England Chronicle, may have attempted to give the enterprise a boost.  The news updates in the column to the left of the advertisement for the popular political pamphlet reported that a “favourite toast, in the best companies, is, ‘May the INDEPENDENT principles of COMMON SENSE be confirmed throughout the United Colonies.’”  The publication and dissemination of a Boston edition of Common Sense helped in spreading those “INDEPENDENT principles in New England.

Slavery Advertisements Published April 4, 1776

Carl Robert Keyes Slavery Adverts 250 Project

The Slavery Adverts 250 Project chronicles the role of newspaper advertising in perpetuating slavery in the era of the American Revolution. The project seeks to reveal the ubiquity of slavery in eighteenth-century life from New England to Georgia by republishing advertisements about enslaved people – for sale as individuals or in groups, wanted to purchase or for hire for short periods, runaways who liberated themselves, and those who were subsequently captured and confined in jails and workhouses – in daily digests on this site as well as in real time via the @SlaveAdverts250 Twitter feed, utilizing twenty-first-century media to stand in for the print media of the eighteenth century.

The project aims to provide modern audiences with a sense of just how often colonizers encountered these advertisements in their daily lives. Enslaved men, women, and children appeared in print somewhere in the colonies almost every single day. Those advertisements served as a constant backdrop for social, cultural, economic, and political life in colonial and revolutionary America. Colonizers who did not purport to own enslaved people were still confronted with slavery as well as invited to maintain the system by purchasing enslaved men, women, and children or assisting in the capture of so-called “runaways” who sought to free themselves from bondage. The frequency of these newspaper advertisements suggests just how embedded slavery was in colonial and revolutionary American culture in everyday interactions beyond the printed page.

These advertisements also testify to the experiences of enslaved men, women, and children, though readers must consider that those experiences have been remediated through descriptions offered by enslavers rather than enslaved people themselves. Often unnamed in the advertisements, enslaved men, women, and children were not invisible or unimportant in early America.

Massimo Sgambati made significant contributions to this entry as part of the Summer Scholars Program, funded by a fellowship from the D’Amour College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at Assumption University in Worcester, Massachusetts, in Summer 2025.

These advertisements appeared in revolutionary American newspapers 250 years ago today.

Maryland Gazette (April 4, 1776).

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Maryland Gazette (April 4, 1776).

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New-England Chronicle (April 4, 1776).

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New-England Chronicle (April 4, 1776).

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New-York Journal (April 4, 1776).

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New-York Journal (April 4, 1776).

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New-York Journal (April 4, 1776).

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New York Packet (April 4, 1776).

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New York Packet (April 4, 1776).

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New York Packet (April 4, 1776).

Advertisements for Common Sense Published April 4, 1776

Carl Robert Keyes Special Features

Historians consider Thomas Paine’s Common Sense, published anonymously on January 9, 1776, the most influential political pamphlet that circulated in the colonies during the era of the American Revolution.  Written in plain language accessible to readers of all backgrounds, the pamphlet made a bold case for declaring independence at a time that many colonizers still sought a redress their grievances by George III and Parliament.  Paine’s pamphlet played a vital role in swaying public opinion in favor of declaring independence.

Common Sense was an eighteenth-century bestseller, though Paine wildly overestimated how many copies were published, claiming 150,000 circulated in 1776, and historians later made even more dubious claims that American printing presses produced as many as 500,000 copies.  Contrary to those exaggerations, American printers most likely published between 35,000 and 50,000 copies in 1776.  Scholars have identified twenty-five American editions, more than twice as many as any other American book or pamphlet published in the eighteenth century.

Colonizers certainly discussed Paine’s pamphlet … and printers, booksellers, and others advertised it widely.  As a special feature, the Adverts 250 Project chronicles those advertisements, starting with newspaper notices for Robert Bell’s first edition published in Philadelphia and then subsequent advertisements for that and other editions published and sold throughout the colonies.

These advertisements for Common Sense appeared in American newspapers 250 years ago today.

New-England Chronicle (April 4, 1776).

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New-England Chronicle (April 4, 1776).

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New-York Journal (April 4, 1776).

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New York Packet (April 4, 1776).

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New York Packet (April 4, 1776).

April 3

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , , , , , , ,

What was advertised in a revolutionary American newspaper 250 years ago today?

“M‘Knight’s Harmony of the
Duhamel’s Husbandry     (Gospel.”

Connecticut Journal (April 3, 1776).

Like other printers throughout the colonies, Thomas Green and Samuel Green, the printers of the Connecticut Journal, stocked and sold an array of imported books, pamphlets, and other merchandise.  Beyond newspaper subscriptions and advertisements and job printing, they cultivated other revenue streams.  As newspaper printers, the Greens had ready access for promoting their wares, doing so, for instance, with an oversized advertisement in the April 3, 1776, edition of the Connecticut Journal.

Connecticut Journal (April 3, 1776).

Listing dozens of titles, that advertisement dominated the third page.  The format distinguished it from any other, extending across two columns in the upper left corner, yet the columns within the advertisement did not align with the rest of the columns in the newspaper.  Rather than the standard width, the Greens used three narrow columns.  They listed one title per line, leaving white space that made it easier for readers to navigate their notice than if they had resorted to a paragraph of dense text.  A couple of advertisements on the facing page received similar treatment.  Anthony Perit’s advertisement for a “large assortment of Dry GOODS” and William Battle’s advertisement for a “general assortment of GOODS suitable for the season” each had their inventory arranged in two columns with a line running down the center, but those notices did not exceed the standard width for the newspaper.  On the other hand, either the Greens or a compositor who set the type realized that one title per line in the catalog of books and pamphlets available at their printing office in New Haven would leave too much white space.  As a matter of both efficiency and design, their advertisement thus featured a format that distinguished it from others.

That efficiency included limiting the number of lines and the overall space required for the advertisement.  Near the bottom of the first column, an incomplete entry for “M‘Knight’s Harmony of the” concluded at the end of the next entry for “Duhamel’s Husbandry” with “(Gospel.”  The complete entry listed M‘Knight’s Harmony of the Gospel.”  The “(” signaled to readers that “Gospel” belonged with either the previous or the following entry.  Similarly, about one third of the way down the second column, an incomplete entry for “Manners & Customs of the Ro-” concluded with “(mans” on the line above and an incomplete entry for “Treatise on the Diseases of Wo-” near the bottom of the final column concluded with “(men” at the end of the previous line.  While not always elegant, the format enhanced the visibility of the advertisement the printers ran to promote book sales.

Slavery Advertisements Published April 3, 1776

Carl Robert Keyes Slavery Adverts 250 Project

The Slavery Adverts 250 Project chronicles the role of newspaper advertising in perpetuating slavery in the era of the American Revolution. The project seeks to reveal the ubiquity of slavery in eighteenth-century life from New England to Georgia by republishing advertisements about enslaved people – for sale as individuals or in groups, wanted to purchase or for hire for short periods, runaways who liberated themselves, and those who were subsequently captured and confined in jails and workhouses – in daily digests on this site as well as in real time via the @SlaveAdverts250 Twitter feed, utilizing twenty-first-century media to stand in for the print media of the eighteenth century.

The project aims to provide modern audiences with a sense of just how often colonizers encountered these advertisements in their daily lives. Enslaved men, women, and children appeared in print somewhere in the colonies almost every single day. Those advertisements served as a constant backdrop for social, cultural, economic, and political life in colonial and revolutionary America. Colonizers who did not purport to own enslaved people were still confronted with slavery as well as invited to maintain the system by purchasing enslaved men, women, and children or assisting in the capture of so-called “runaways” who sought to free themselves from bondage. The frequency of these newspaper advertisements suggests just how embedded slavery was in colonial and revolutionary American culture in everyday interactions beyond the printed page.

These advertisements also testify to the experiences of enslaved men, women, and children, though readers must consider that those experiences have been remediated through descriptions offered by enslavers rather than enslaved people themselves. Often unnamed in the advertisements, enslaved men, women, and children were not invisible or unimportant in early America.

Massimo Sgambati made significant contributions to this entry as part of the Summer Scholars Program, funded by a fellowship from the D’Amour College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at Assumption University in Worcester, Massachusetts, in Summer 2025.

These advertisements appeared in revolutionary American newspapers 250 years ago today.

Pennsylvania Gazette (April 3, 1776).

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Pennsylvania Gazette (April 3, 1776).

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Pennsylvania Journal (April 3, 1776).

Advertisements for Common Sense Published April 3, 1776

Carl Robert Keyes Special Features

Historians consider Thomas Paine’s Common Sense, published anonymously on January 9, 1776, the most influential political pamphlet that circulated in the colonies during the era of the American Revolution.  Written in plain language accessible to readers of all backgrounds, the pamphlet made a bold case for declaring independence at a time that many colonizers still sought a redress their grievances by George III and Parliament.  Paine’s pamphlet played a vital role in swaying public opinion in favor of declaring independence.

Common Sense was an eighteenth-century bestseller, though Paine wildly overestimated how many copies were published, claiming 150,000 circulated in 1776, and historians later made even more dubious claims that American printing presses produced as many as 500,000 copies.  Contrary to those exaggerations, American printers most likely published between 35,000 and 50,000 copies in 1776.  Scholars have identified twenty-five American editions, more than twice as many as any other American book or pamphlet published in the eighteenth century.

Colonizers certainly discussed Paine’s pamphlet … and printers, booksellers, and others advertised it widely.  As a special feature, the Adverts 250 Project chronicles those advertisements, starting with newspaper notices for Robert Bell’s first edition published in Philadelphia and then subsequent advertisements for that and other editions published and sold throughout the colonies.

These advertisements for Common Sense appeared in American newspapers 250 years ago today.

Pennsylvania Journal (April 3, 1776).

April 2

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , , , , , ,

What was advertised in a revolutionary American newspaper 250 years ago today?

Pennsylvania Evening Post (April 2, 1776).

“HYNS TAYLOR, UPHOLSTERER, … AMELIA TAYLORS, MILANER and MANTUA MAKER.”

When Hyns Taylor, an upholsterer, relocated from London to Philadelphia, he introduced himself to prospective customers via an advertisement in the Pennsylvania Evening Post in the spring of 1776.  Like other artisans who migrated from the largest and most cosmopolitan city in the empire to the colonies, he encouraged consumers to associate sophistication with his prior experience.  Rather than merely stating that he was “from London,” as many did in their advertisements, he instead specified that he was “late from Saint James’s, London,” apparently believing that readers recognized the cachet of that address.  He also emphasized that he upholstered “all kind of furniture in the newest fashion,” including “drapery, Venetian, Gothic, canopy, four-post and couch beds.”  Even though the colonies were at odds with the empire, many colonizers even calling for independence as the anniversary of the battles at Lexington and Concord approached, they still looked to London for that “newest fashion,” yet Taylor also took current events into account by noting that he also worked on “field and camp beds” with “all sorts of mattresses.”

Members of Taylor’s household may have assisted him in the upholstery shop, yet Amelia Taylor, most likely his wife, but perhaps a daughter or other female relation, pursued her own enterprise as a “MILANER and MANTUA MAKER.”  Hyns and Amelia devised a join advertisement.  He received top billing in the first paragraph, while the second paragraph informed prospective customers that she “makes up all sorts of milanery goods,” such as “child-bed linen, childrens robes, jams, frocks, vests and tunics, gentlemens shirts, stocks, and all kinds of needlework.”  She emphasized her skill, stating that she did her work “in the very neatest manner,” though the Taylors likely intended for readers to note her origins “from Saint James’s, London,” when they considered engaging her services.  Although Amelia appeared second in the advertisement, her name and occupation in capital letters received the same treatment as Hyns’s name and occupation.  Only the drop cap, the large letter “H” that began the advertisement, distinguished his name from hers.  That may have been by their own design when they composed the copy or it may have been a decision made by the compositor when setting the type.  Either way, it signaled a partnership in which both Hyns and Amelia contributed to the livelihood of the Taylor household.

April 1

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , , , ,

What was advertised in a revolutionary American newspaper 250 years ago today?

Boston-Gazette (April 1, 1776).

“AN ORATION … To Commemorate the Bloody Massacre at Boston: Perpetrated March 5, 1770.”

The annual tradition continued during the first year of the Revolutionary War.  Each year since the Boston Massacre, residents of the city gathered to mark the anniversary, honor the men who died when British regulars fired into a crowd of protestors, and hear an oration about the dangers of a standing army stationed in an urban port during times of peace.  James Lovell delivered the address in 1771, followed by Joseph Warren in 1772, Benjamin Church in 1773, and John Hancock in 1774.  In March 1775, Joseph Warren gave the last oration before the Revolutionary War commenced with the battles at Lexington and Concord on April 19.  Three months later, he was killed in action at the Battle of Bunker Hill.

Patriots made adjustments to the ritual in 1776.  The British occupation of Boston continued.  The Continental Army, commanded by George Washington, continued the siege of the city.  The Massachusetts Provincial Congress met at Watertown.  It was from there that William Cooper, the “Town Clerk of Boston” in exile, announced that according to a “vote in a town-meeting legally assembled” on March 5, 1775, “an ORATION will be delivered at the meeting-house, in Watertown, on the 5th of March next, … to commemorate the horrid Massacre perpetrated in Boston, on the evening of the 5th of March, 1770, by a party of Soldiers of the 29th Regiment, under the command of Capt. Thomas Preston.”  Refugees from Boston and the inhabitants of Watertown and other nearby towns gathered in Watertown for the annual oration about “the ruinous tendency of Standing armies being placed in large and populous cities, in time of peace.”  It was also a rally for asserting “the necessity of such exertions as the inhabitants of Boston then manifested, whereby the designs of the conspirators against the public safety, have been frustrated.”

Although circumstances forced those “who were inhabitants of Boston” to shift the location for the annual commemoration, other aspects remained constant, including the printing, marketing, and dissemination of the oration a few weeks after the gathering occurred.  This time, Peter Thacher delivered “AN ORATION … To Commemorate the Bloody Massacre at Boston: Perpetrated March 5, 1770.”  Benjamin Edes, who had relocated the Boston-Gazette from Boston to Watertown, printed the pamphlet and sold it at his printing office.  As had been the case with previous orations, this gave those who had been present an opportunity to experience Thacher’s address again and as many times as they wished to read it.  The pamphlet also gave those who had not attended a chance to read what Thacher said and imbibe the arguments made in support of the American cause.  Gathering for the oration was an important civic act, yet the circulation of the oration in print may have had an impact just as significant.

Slavery Advertisements Published April 1, 1776

Carl Robert Keyes Slavery Adverts 250 Project

The Slavery Adverts 250 Project chronicles the role of newspaper advertising in perpetuating slavery in the era of the American Revolution. The project seeks to reveal the ubiquity of slavery in eighteenth-century life from New England to Georgia by republishing advertisements about enslaved people – for sale as individuals or in groups, wanted to purchase or for hire for short periods, runaways who liberated themselves, and those who were subsequently captured and confined in jails and workhouses – in daily digests on this site as well as in real time via the @SlaveAdverts250 Twitter feed, utilizing twenty-first-century media to stand in for the print media of the eighteenth century.

The project aims to provide modern audiences with a sense of just how often colonizers encountered these advertisements in their daily lives. Enslaved men, women, and children appeared in print somewhere in the colonies almost every single day. Those advertisements served as a constant backdrop for social, cultural, economic, and political life in colonial and revolutionary America. Colonizers who did not purport to own enslaved people were still confronted with slavery as well as invited to maintain the system by purchasing enslaved men, women, and children or assisting in the capture of so-called “runaways” who sought to free themselves from bondage. The frequency of these newspaper advertisements suggests just how embedded slavery was in colonial and revolutionary American culture in everyday interactions beyond the printed page.

These advertisements also testify to the experiences of enslaved men, women, and children, though readers must consider that those experiences have been remediated through descriptions offered by enslavers rather than enslaved people themselves. Often unnamed in the advertisements, enslaved men, women, and children were not invisible or unimportant in early America.

Massimo Sgambati made significant contributions to this entry as part of the Summer Scholars Program, funded by a fellowship from the D’Amour College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at Assumption University in Worcester, Massachusetts, in Summer 2025.

These advertisements appeared in revolutionary American newspapers 250 years ago today.

Boston-Gazette (April 1, 1776).

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Connecticut Courant (April 1, 1776).

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New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury (April 1, 1776).

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New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury (April 1, 1776).

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New-York Gazette and Weekly Mercury (April 1, 1776).

March 31

Carl Robert Keyes Daily Advert Update , , , , , , , , ,

What was advertised in a revolutionary American newspaper 250 years ago this week?

Supplement to the Pennsylvania Ledger (March 30, 1776).

“BLANKS and HAND-BILLS in particular are done on the shortest notice.”

In the spring of 1776, Melchior Steiner and Charles (Carl) Cist ran an advertisement “to acquaint the public, that they have removed their PRINTING OFFICE to the house of Ludwick Sprogrell, in Second-street” in Philadelphia.  In their new location, the partners “carry on the PRINTING-BUSINESS in its different branches, in the English, German, and other languages, with care, fidelity & dispatch.”  That had been a common appeal in advertisements that they previously placed in several newspapers in December and January, emphasized in a headline that proclaimed, “PRINTING In ENGLISH, GERMAN, and other Languages.”  By the time they relocated, Steiner and Cist collaborated with William Bradford and Thomas Bradford, the printers of the Pennsylvania Journal, in printing a new edition of Thomas Paine’s Common Sense approved by the author and a German translation of the popular pamphlet.

Yet the printers did not limit themselves to books and pamphlets and other major projects.  They concluded their advertisement with a note that “BLANKS and HAND-BILLS in particular are done on the shortest notice.”  In other words, they accepted all sorts of smaller job printing assignments, quickly producing documents useful in business.  “BLANKS” referred to a variety of forms so commonly used that it saved time to print them in volume and then write the details by hand for each transaction.  In an advertisement in the Providence Gazette, John Carter listed more than a dozen kinds of blanks he printed, including “long and short Powers of Attorney, long and short Deeds, Bills of Sale, Bills of Lading, Portage Bills, Policies of Insurance, Apprentices Indentures, [and] Bonds of various Sorts.”  When it came to “HAND-BILLS,” customers used them to promote consumer goods and services, sometimes supplementing newspaper advertisements, and to disseminate news about politics, meetings, and other current events.  That printers so often advertised that they printed handbills suggests that many more of those items circulated in early American cities and towns than have survived in research libraries, historical societies, and private collections.  Steiner and Cist printed both blanks and handbills “on the shortest notice,” indicating that customers expected their orders to be filled speedily so they could get more information into circulation.